It seems that the entire world doesn't' want Kate Winslet to change. And by "entire world" I mean myself, and Kira Cochrane from The Guaridan.
In a "revealing" interview set in a typically posh hoel somewhere in London, Cochrane spoke to Winslet about feminism, age gaps in relationships, and her two new films, Revolutionary Road and The Reader.
It seems quite fashionable to ask big, female movie stars if they "would call yourself feminist", and most of them, rightly, give an awkward "um, sure" answer that they think will please the interviewer.
For example, I love Winslet's answer when Cochrane asks her if she's a feminist:
'I think I probably am, aren't I?' Her assistant hurriedly adds, 'In a loose, unofficial kind of way,' but Winslet continues to ponder. 'I think I probably am. I mean, not in a bra-burning way. But I think I am a feminist, yeah.'
Not in a bra-burning way? Well that's OK, then, Kate.
I think what I found interesting about this interview was that Cochrane clearly longs for Kate to be Kate we fell in love with five years ago. You know...
"The woman who grew up in a terraced house in Reading, who was bullied
and called "blubber" by classmates, who was a 17-year-old preparing a
pastrami sandwich at the deli where she worked when she received the
call about her role in Heavenly Creatures, and promptly headed outside
to cry."
Winslet seems to have moved on in her life. Not to say that she's become some uppity, Paris Hilton-type celebrity, but between her nude Vanity Fair photo shoots and the ferociousness that she defends her character's actions (a 36-year-old former Nazi who falls in love with a 15-year-old boy) in The Reader, she seems to have grown past being the "outspoken, earthy, warm, sweary" version of herself we first met.
And what has she grown into?
I'm not sure. I suppose an older, thinner, more jaded actress who sits "perched regal, straight-backed, in the centre of a sofa, a pouch of rolling tobacco laid ceremoniously before her" which she then smokes "so theatrically that all that's missing is a cigarette holder".
Meh.
Image via Yahoo! Movies